


Pas de Deux

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Pas De Deux [3]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ballet, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-18
Updated: 2017-04-18
Packaged: 2018-10-20 15:39:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10665696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Any, any male, lead in a cutting-edge dance production."Rodney tries to be supportive of John in his new role.





	Pas de Deux

**Author's Note:**

  * For [respoftw](https://archiveofourown.org/users/respoftw/gifts), [Brumeier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/gifts).



> Inspired by respoftw's recommendation of Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake (Cooper and Ambler version). 
> 
> All the thanks to Brumeier for her beta work, support, and feeding fistfuls of carrots to my weird plot bunnies.

If Rodney had thought that dating John was difficult before, with how busy the two of them were, dating John now that rehearsals and production of _Swan Lake_ were under way was nearly impossible. None of the senior dancers were teaching classes anymore, so when Rodney went to drop Madison off and pick her up, a girl who looked to be barely more than a teenager named Cassandra was the instructor instead.

And Rodney couldn’t sneak off to the other studios to watch John, either. They were pretty locked down, and they were crowded with dancers, to boot - nervous swans (including Kevin and the rest of the proud cygnets), energetic princesses, and the very lovely and very scary queen.

In an effort to be more supportive of John’s apparently very prestigious role, Rodney made some attempt to research _Swan Lake_ , but things at the lab were heating up - they were close to making a breakthrough on their zero-point energy research - and at best all Rodney managed was asking Madison what _Swan Lake_ was about. As Madison was only five, Rodney learned, on the way home from dance class, in _Swan Lake_ the White Swan wanted to marry a prince, and the Black Swan wanted to marry him too, and the White Swan was actually a princess, and the Black Swan wasn’t a princess, and only a princess could marry a prince, and the princess and prince lived happily ever after.

Rodney was pretty sure that no Russian story ended quite that neatly and happily, so during a very brief coffee break one day, he went to Wikipedia to look at a plot summary of _Swan Lake_ , and - oh. The Swan and The Prince committed suicide together so they could be dead happily ever after.

Mitchell and John had joked about making kissy faces at each other during the production, and Rodney hadn’t thought too closely about the implications. The thought of Mitchell and John dancing together on stage, being in love, even if it was pretend, made something in Rodney’s chest twist uncomfortably.

Although really, how in love could they be? They were dancing. Ballet was physically demanding and very technical, and neither John nor Mitchell would have the energy to really act.

But Rodney heard about actors falling in love with each other on set all the time, even when one or both of them had started off the production in committed relationships. Mitchell said he was straight, but John was beautiful, and Rodney had been an actor when he was younger - he understood how pretend feelings could get mixed up with real feelings.

This was a huge opportunity for John. Rodney had to be supportive.

So he consulted his guru in all life things, Teyla.

Teyla was standing in her office, considering the next publicity campaign for Atlantis Enterprises. Her toddler son was sitting on a blanket in the corner, playing with the colored blocks Rodney had given him at his last birthday. They were educational toys. Already Torren was proving quite the engineer, constructing an elaborate, color-coordinated tower.

“Hey, Teyla, how do I make my boyfriend feel more supported?”

Teyla turned. “Supported in what way?”

“John’s been cast as The Swan in the ballet’s upcoming production of _Swan Lake_ , and I know that’s very prestigious for him, and it’s also going to be a lot of hard work. How do I let him know that I’m happy for him?”

“Well, you could start by actually attending the performance,” Teyla said.

Atlantis Enterprises’ donation to the ballet company had been large enough (Rodney had agreed to a number before ever meeting John, thank you very much) that the company had its own box all season long. Given that Rodney barely trusted Radek with the more delicate experiments, Rodney let anyone who wanted to use the box use it. Miko set up a calendar of performances and sent out notifications for anyone who wanted tickets, let them bring a date or their families. If none of the employees wanted the tickets, Teyla made arrangements for underprivileged children to have the tickets.

“Obviously I’ll be there on opening night,” Rodney said. “And - I’ll bring flowers. That’s what you do, right? Bring flowers for the leading dancers.”

Teyla nodded. “When I danced, I was often very tired after long practices.”

Rodney raised his eyebrows. “You danced?”

“Yes, Rodney. For many years. I still enjoy dancing, though I do not train and perform as I once did.” Teyla smiled. “John will appreciate your company after a hard day of rehearsal. If you perhaps cook him dinner, or rub his feet, he will appreciate that.”

Foot rub. Rodney could do that. He played piano. He had great hands. And he was a good cook - had to be, because no one took his citrus allergy seriously. Well, Teyla and everyone at work took it seriously, and of course John took it seriously, but restaurants rarely seemed to. Rodney’s own mother hadn’t taken it seriously.

“Those are all very sound suggestions. Thank you, Teyla.” Rodney paused and greeted Torren briefly before he left Teyla’s office.

He spent his next coffee break watching a YouTube tutorial on how to given an effective foot massage.

*

John looked completely exhausted when he stepped out of the theater. He was freshly showered, but he was moving with the lethargy of one whose body was on the verge of shutting down. As soon as Rodney saw him, Rodney knew he was doing the right thing.

“Here, this’ll perk you up a bit.” He held out a cup of coffee.

John blinked at him for a moment, dazed, but then he smiled and leaned in for a quick kiss. “Rodney. Aren’t you a vision. Shouldn’t you be at the lab?”

“Nope.” That wasn’t quite true. Well, he could be at the lab, but he was working on his trust issues. Surely Radek could be trusted to run the XPS. He fixed the thing half the time as it was. “I am exactly where I should be, which is supporting my beautiful boyfriend as he prepares for his role as the Swan.”

John smiled over the rim of his coffee cup. “Unfortunately, your boyfriend is tired and probably not very good company.”

“That’s okay. I’m going to take you home and cook you dinner and, if you so desire, rub your feet.”

John stared at Rodney for a long moment. “What did I ever do to deserve you?”

The awe and wonder in his voice made Rodney pause, because no one had ever looked at him like that, like he was good and kind and perfect and -

John swept Rodney into a kiss, long and lingering and deep, that stole Rodney’s breath.

Rodney pulled back, breathing hard, and gazed into John’s eyes.

And then a woman said, “Hey, you two need a ride? Because you definitely need to get a room.”

They turned, and a cab had pulled over to the sidewalk, the driver peering out the passenger window expectantly.

“Yes, we do need a ride,” Rodney said. He opened the door and ushered John in first, slid in beside him, and rattled off John’s address.

John tucked himself in beside Rodney with a happy, if tired sigh, curled his fingers through Rodney’s.

“No hanky panky,” the driver said dryly, though she looked amused more than chastising as she pulled the cab out into traffic.

“Pretty sure I don’t have the energy for it,” John said.

Rodney would have been disappointed, but he said, “Do you know how much force is exerted on a ballet dancer’s feet when he’s dancing _en pointe?_ It’s a miracle he’s even walking.”

“A ballet dancer?” the cab driver asked.

“Yup,” John said. “A ballet dancer.”

“You don’t look like a ballet dancer.”

“I’ve been told it’s the hair.”

“It’s the posture,” Rodney and the cab driver said at the same time.

John laughed weakly. “I’ve been told that, too. But I’m not on duty right now, and I am very tired. Do you know how much Cam Mitchell weighs? A lot. And it seems like more every time I have to pick him up.”

“Pick him up?” Rodney asked. “But - but you’re the Swan and he’s the Prince. Shouldn’t _he_ be picking _you_ up?”

John kissed him on the cheek. “It’s so cute that you think the choreography of a production of _Swan Lake_ with all male swans would conform to traditional gender roles.”

“Touché.”

Back at John’s apartment, John flopped onto the sofa with a groan while Rodney started dinner, lean chicken, mixed vegetables, and a little bit of rice. While everything was steaming, Rodney cuddled up on the couch next to John.

“How was your day?” John asked.

“It was fine.” Rodney and Radek were making slow but steady progress on the question of zero-point energy. At this point they were running experiments, and once the experiments were done, then they had to work up the data, and crunching the numbers took ridiculous amounts of time. “And yours?”

“Cam and I almost have our first _pas de deux_ down. Dancing barefoot is rough.” John sighed.

Rodney’s timer on his phone buzzed, and he reluctantly wriggled out of John’s embrace, went to the stove and checked on the food. He poured both of them a glass of white wine to go with the meal, plated it up on a tray, and carried the tray over to the couch.

“Really,” John said, “where did you come from, and how did you decide I was worth your time?”

“You did do a fantastic job as my ballet boy toy for an evening,” Rodney offered.

John tried a bite of chicken, made a happy moan that made Rodney’s pulse flutter. “I promise I will always be your ballet boy toy.”

“I promise I will keep you,” Rodney said, “no matter what, ballet or boy toy or otherwise.”

“You are a really good cook,” John added. “Do you like to cook?”

That was the kind of thing John should know by now, right? What did it say about their relationship, that he didn’t know that?

Rodney liked to pride himself on being a rational man, but there was so much he and John didn’t know about each other, and Rodney was pretty sure that he was ridiculously head-over-heels in love with John. He didn’t know about John’s family, and John barely knew about what growing up had been like for Rodney, but Rodney did know that he couldn’t conceive of a future without John in it.

“I like to eat,” Rodney said. “And people don’t take my citrus allergy seriously, so cooking is a means to an end.”

“Well, you’re very good at it, and I appreciate it.”

Rodney patted his knee. “Eat up, and I will give you a foot rub.”

“Are you sure?” John asked. “Ballet dancers don’t have particularly nice feet, and I’ve been dancing on mine all day.”

“As a physicist, I well know how much strain you put on your feet, even though you’ve had years of training and conditioning so you don’t injure yourself while dancing _en pointe_ , and I am pretty sure a foot rub will make you feel better.” Rodney set aside his plate, swallowed a mouthful of wine, and pulled John’s feet onto his lap.

“Rodney -”

Rodney scooped up the remote for John’s radio and turned it on. Johnny Cash’s cover of Long Black Veil filled the room.

John’s eyes slid closed. “Wow. You really are serious.”

“As a heart attack,” Rodney said.

John fell asleep halfway through Rodney working over his other foot, only woke up long enough for Rodney to help him to bed.

Rodney cleaned up the kitchen and packed up the leftovers in a tupperware for John’s lunch tomorrow, and then he crawled into bed beside John and fell asleep.

John’s alarm went off hideously early, and he came awake with a frankly unjustified alertness.

“I have to go,” John said. “You can stay, just lock the door behind you. And - there’s a spare key, on top of the door frame. Take it. I’ll get another made for emergencies.”

Rodney protested sleepily. “Wait. I’m getting up. Need to shower and get to the lab.”

John leaned in for a quick kiss and caress, and then he was gone.

Rodney fell back to sleep for about fifteen minutes before he hauled himself out of bed and into the shower. Then he realized he had no clean clothes and had to tug on his dirty ones, call a cab, get home, shower and change again, and get to the lab.

He was wiser this time around and packed an overnight bag before he met John after rehearsals. John greeted him with a kiss and gratitude for the lunch Rodney had packed for him, and they took a cab home, and for the first time Rodney genuinely considered getting a car of his own.

Once again he made dinner, though John forewent a glass of wine, and Rodney gave him a foot rub, and he talked to John about the research he’d done that day.

“How do you compile your data?” John asked.

“Mostly it involves partial differential equations,” Rodney said. “But I have to look at the data and build a statistical analysis to eliminate noise.”

“Signal-to-noise ratios. I remember those.” John sighed happily when Rodney dug his thumb into the ball of John’s foot.

“Remember those?” Rodney echoed.

“Yeah. Partial differential equations. Took a while, but once they clicked, they just - clicked.”

“You took calculus?” Rodney asked. That level of calculus wasn’t taught in high school.

John nodded, eyes closed. “Yeah. Didn’t go to college, but I went to a regular high school and trained after school. Once I graduated I auditioned for the company academy, but I went to school. Took AP classes. I still like math. Do it for fun, sometimes. When I’m not playing my guitar.” He pointed to the bookcase. “There are some math textbooks over there.”

Rodney remembered how John had thoroughly decimated him at a game of chess. “How good are you at math?”

“Pretty good.” John opened one eye and winked. “Passed the MENSA test. Didn’t join, obviously - I’m a pretty busy guy.”

Rodney swallowed hard. “Is it terrible of me to find that incredibly hot?”

John opened both eyes and smirked. “No. Not terrible at all.” He sat up. “In fact, after that excellent foot rub, I am feeling a lot more energetic. How about we take this to the bedroom and you explain, in some more detail, just how hot you find my math skills.”

Rodney nodded. “I approve of this plan. Let’s go.”

*

The next morning, Rodney managed to wake up at the same time as John, with enough time to pin John to the bed and blow him thoroughly, which resulted in John needing to shower, and led to John blowing Rodney in the shower and both of them being late.

But not as late as they could have been, because Rodney was smart and brought an overnight bag with a clean change of clothes, and John made up lunch out of leftovers for both of them. They parted on the sidewalk with a kiss before they climbed into separate cabs. As Rodney headed to the lab, he reminded himself to pack another overnight bag, and maybe also do a load of laundry at John’s place that night, so the both of them had clean clothes.

Days turned into weeks turned into a month, John dancing all day, Rodney in the lab plodding along with research all day, both of them coming together in the evening and spending time together, learning more about each other. John played his guitar for Rodney, and Rodney played the piano for John (the two of them sneaked into a ballet studio so Rodney could use the piano there). They played chess, and Rodney told John about the time he built a non-working nuclear warhead for his sixth grade science project.

John told Rodney about the first time he knew he wanted to be a ballet dancer, ironically after watching a traditional production of _Swan Lake_ , and watched Prince Siegfried soar across the stage.

“It looked like flying. Like he could just take off and fly whenever he wanted.”

“You could get your pilot’s license,” Rodney said.

“You know, Mitchell said the same thing. It’s easier for him to be a straight male ballet dancer than it is for me to be a gay fighter pilot.” John and Rodney were lying in bed together, John tucked against Rodney’s side.

“You didn’t have to be a fighter pilot.”

“There’s no way my mother could have afforded flying lessons for me. She sacrificed everything so I could have dance lessons,” John said. “And besides, I think I made the right choice. I can fly any time, anywhere I choose.”

Rodney nodded, nuzzled John’s ear. “Fair enough.” He wanted to ask more about John’s mother, what happened to his father, but he didn’t dare.

“Hey Rodney,” John said, “are we living together?”

“No. I mean, yes, I sleep over a lot, but -”

“But you shower here, and you keep clothes here, and you do laundry here, and you cook here, and you clean up after you cook and -”

“All of that is true.” Alarm tingled up Rodney’s spine. “What are you saying? Am I - am I being too clingy? Do you want some space?” The thought of not seeing John every day made his throat close.

“Just the opposite.” John rolled onto his side, gazed into Rodney’s eyes. “I gave you the spare key. I’m saying you should move in with me. You practically live here already.”

“Really?” They were moving fast, so fast, had been together all of four months.

“Really. Otherwise I’d have asked for my key back by now. There’s no point in you wasting money on rent when you’re here all the time.”

“I own my condo,” Rodney said. “You’re still renting?”

John raised his eyebrows. “Well, yeah. Downtown’s crazy expensive. You - really?”

“Well, I am one of the Company patrons for a reason,” Rodney said.

“I thought your company sponsors us.”

“Atlantis Enterprises is one of the company’s corporate sponsors, yes, but I also donate individually.” Rodney slung his arm over John’s hip. “It would make more sense for you to move in with me. I have more space, and I’m not much farther from the theater, as cab rides go. Unless you’re really attached to this place? We could buy this place and I could sell my place -”

“I’m not especially attached to this place,” John said. “I’m never here. I’m especially attached to you, though.”

“Sure. Let’s live together. You’re right. We basically already do.” Rodney leaned in and kissed John. “When?”

“I’ll talk to my landlord sometime today.” John smiled against Rodney’s lips. “It’s a rare moment in my life, when a genius tells me I’m right. I think we should celebrate before I go to rehearsals. What do you say, genius?”

Rodney’s answer was a longer, deeper kiss.

*

“Pretty sure there’s a joke about this somewhere,” Evan said. He yawned and stretched, and Ronon stepped in beside him, began to massage his neck and shoulders.

“What kind of joke?” Radek pushed his glasses up his nose, curious.

“It would probably start, _A physicist, a fireman, and a ballet dancer walk into a bar_ ,” Evan said.

Radek laughed.

Rodney, who’d been unprepared for just how much stuff he owned, given how he was rarely home, was slumped against the kitchen bar on one of the tall stools, exhausted from rearranging, well, everything.

John’s possessions had been meager in comparison - clothes, books, a handful of CDs and DVDs, and his guitar. He was in the bedroom, sorting his books on the bookcase. His landlord had agreed to release him from his lease at the end of the month - he was on a month-to-month as it was - but John had wanted to move in as soon as possible.

His and Rodney’s quiet evenings had been interrupted by a gaggle of ballet dancers, including some ladies - Vala, Jennifer, Katie (not to be mixed up with Kate), Amelia, and Hailey (whose first name was also Jennifer but she went by her last name to avoid confusion) - who came over armed with markers, rolls of tape, and cardboard boxes, and proceeded to box up John’s life. He lived off of the same repeatedly laundered change of clothes for a couple of days while everything was packed and labeled.

Rodney had convinced Radek and Miko to help him move John in, and Evan had kindly brought along Ronon, who could lift alone what otherwise required three physicists or two ballet dancers.

John emerged from the bedroom. “And it’s done. I’m officially all moved in.”

“You’re not officially moved in till you’ve christened the place,” Mitchell said.

“In that case,” John said, plastering himself to Rodney’s side and sliding a hand into his back pocket (he loved Rodney in jeans), “maybe the rest of you better depart so we can get to that whole christening thing.”

Evan laughed. “I don’t quite think that’s what Mitchell meant.” He placed a bottle of champagne on the counter. “But how about a quick toast, and then we’ll leave you to it.”

Rodney nodded, and Evan popped the cork, and he passed the bottle around for the entire moving crew to sample.

It was Radek who gave a toast. “May you both share this home and your lives in happiness.”

“Cheers!” Mitchell said, and took an especially long pull from the bottle.

Evan swiped the bottle from him. “And you’re cut off.”

“He’s not even drunk,” Ronon said.

“Too drunk for a ballet dancer in intense rehearsals,” Evan said firmly, and John nodded his agreement.

“Thank you for all your help.” Rodney helped Radek into his coat, ushered everyone out the front door, made sure they made it onto the elevator. Then he turned to John to ask which room John wanted to christen first, but John was fast sleep on the bar, his head pillowed on his arms.

Rodney sighed, prodded John awake, and helped him to bed, undressed, and crawled in beside him.

*

Officially moving in together should have given them more time to see each other or made it feel like they were more together or something, but their schedules continued to be incredibly busy.

John was ramping up time spent at the theater, because dress rehearsals were on their way, and he had to stick around after rehearsals for costume fittings, and then once the costumes were finished he and Mitchell and a bunch of the other dancers had to perform for a photographer so the theater would have publicity shots of the primary dancers (including the cygnets).

Rodney’s time at the lab was the same, but if John wasn’t going to be home till later Rodney saw no point in puttering around the empty condo by himself, so he might as well be productive.

This was the role of a lifetime. John should have been elated. Mostly he looked exhausted, could barely keep his eyes open long enough to eat and get himself to bed.

Rodney started fixing long hot baths for him at the end of the day, and more often than not, John fell asleep in the tub. Rodney might have scared some of the female salesclerks at one of the local cosmetic places, buying a massive supply of chamomile bath bombs, but he didn’t want John to be in constant pain.

When they reached the two-week mark before opening night, John and Mitchell ramped up publicity even more, doing interviews on local radio and television stations, talking to reporters, and giving high-profile members of the community backstage tours.

Rodney didn’t actually _see_ John for three days straight, just traded text messages and handwritten notes with him. John rose before Rodney each day and stumbled to bed long after him, and all Rodney knew of him was a sense of warmth and comfort in his dreams. When he woke, the other side of the bed was always cold.

After the third day of this nonsense, Rodney had had enough, so under cover of picking Madison up from dance class, he kidnapped John. Madison was his willing accomplice, taking advantage of her short stature and ballet gear to slip past one of the many production assistants who was constantly fretting over this or that and heading back to the main rehearsal studios.

Rodney affected a nonchalant pose just outside the student studio - he’d won a Sears Drama Award when he was twelve for good reason - and waited, and after a couple of minutes, John hurried down the hallway, carrying a crying Madison.

“Rodney,” he said, “Madison was terrified. She said you were late and Jeannie wasn’t answering her phone -”

Madison launched herself out of John’s arms and into Rodney’s, grinning despite her tear-stained face. “I did it! Did I do good?”

John stared at her in disbelief, then at Rodney. “Did you just -?”

“Have my niece pretext you away from rehearsals? Yes. This is a kidnapping.” Rodney grabbed John’s wrist and dragged him toward the door. “We’re going for coffee and we’re walking Madison home and then I’m calling a cab and the rest of my plans for you are not for delicate ears.”

John looked like he was going to protest, but then he laughed ruefully. “All right. You win. Let me change into some street clothes, though.” He kissed Rodney quickly, then turned and hurried back the way he’d come.

After three minutes - John was very fast at showering and changing - Rodney started to get antsy, thinking Elizabeth or Daniel or some other high ballet muckety-muck had caught him, but then a cry rose up, and a dozen people shouted, _Evan!_ And Mitchell said _I got him!_ And someone else asked, _Is it your ankle or your knee?_ And Evan said, _I’m fine, I just stumbled, really -_

And John came skittering out of the hallway, wearing dark jeans and a soft cream sweater. “Let’s go, while they’re distracted. We’ll owe Evan and Mitchell one.”

Madison, who’d dried her face, giggled at the excitement, and together they escaped out a side door.

On the pavement, Madison walked between them, letting both of them hold her hands. Rodney carried her dance bag in his other hand, and John carried his. When Madison demanded _up!_ both men would swing her upward, and she’d laugh in delight.

Instead of getting coffee to go, like they usually did, they ordered large mugs of coffee for themselves and a smaller mug of hot cocoa for Madison, and they sat at a table in the corner, warming their hands.

John asked Madison about her ballet lessons, and she told him excitedly about the new moves she was learning - she pronounced her French very carefully - and how she had a recital coming up in a few weeks, and would he be able to take a break from being a swan and come see her?

John said he’d find out what night her recital was and see if he could make it, but he was going to be a swan every night for a couple of months, and sometimes during the day on Saturdays, and being a swan was very tiring, but if she worked hard at her dancing, maybe one day she could be a swan.

“What about Uncle Mer?” Madison asked. “Can he be a swan too?”

Rodney spluttered into his coffee. He expected John to laugh, but John said,

“No, Uncle Mer is a prince.”

“Is Uncle Mer _your_ prince?” Madison asked.

Rodney was deeply suspicious of her utterly guileless expression, the way she batted her eyelashes, because she was clearly fishing for information deliberately, but John obviously had no experience with children, because he nodded and said,

“Yeah, he’s my prince.”

Rodney’s phone buzzed with a text message from Jeannie, inquiring after Madison’s whereabouts. He fired back a quick message assuring Jeannie that Madison was safe and she would be home soon.

“What if I don’t want to be a swan?” Madison asked. “What if I want to be a princess?”

“You can be a princess if you want,” John said. “Or a queen, or a fairy, or whatever you want to be.”

“What if I want to be a Nutcracker? Will you teach me?” Madison pressed.

John smiled at her, amused. “Yes. If you want, I will teach you to be a Nutcracker. Now c’mon, we better get you home. Don’t want to be late for supper, do you?”

“No, late is bad.” Madison finished the last of her hot cocoa and jumped to her feet, grabbed her dance bag. She carried John and Rodney’s mugs of coffee back to the return basin, and then she hurried back to them, grabbed both of their hands. Her dance bag started to slip, so Rodney took it from her, and they started for the door.

Someone tapped Rodney on the shoulder, and he turned.

A strange woman in a long dark coat held up Madison’s scarf. “You forgot this.”

John accepted it from her. “Thank you. What do you say to the nice lady, Madison?”

Madison offered the woman a deep ballet curtsey and said, “Thank you.”

The woman laughed. She patted Rodney on the shoulder and said, “You and your husband are raising a wonderful little girl.” And then she walked away before Rodney could correct her.

Madison just giggled and clung tightly to Rodney’s hand. “I have the McKay blue eyes and blonde hair, right Uncle Mer?”

John raised his eyebrows. “Were you blond as a kid?”

Together the three of them headed into the evening.

Rodney nodded. “Yes, I was.” Sure, he loved Madison, had always planned to have a hand in raising her, in being involved in her life, but he’d never considered children of his own, issues of biology aside. He followed Madison and John, dazed, because suddenly he could see it, a little girl of their own, with a child-sized chess set and pink ballet slippers and -

“Penny for your thoughts?” John’s voice jolted Rodney out of his daze.

There was fast and then too fast. John and Rodney had been together four and a half months, had moved in together two weeks ago, and John was coming up on the role of his career. A child was too much, too soon.

Rodney curled a hand around John’s hip and pulled him in for a kiss. He whispered, “I love you. Now let me take you home.”

*

Rodney was lying awake, watching John while he slept and thinking the stuff that pop songs are made of, _How did I ever live before you?_ and _My life would be empty without you_ and _You are perfect_ and _I don’t deserve you_ and _Please never leave me_ when his phone buzzed.

He groaned and slapped out at the nightstand, scooped it up to unlock it and turn off the vibrate mode when he saw the text message from Radek.

_It works._

Rodney sat bolt upright. He’d programmed the data analysis algorithm into the computer two days ago and set it to run on the data and turned his attention to helping fix the LEIS. He hadn’t expected the results until tomorrow.

But it worked. Their Casimir Plate engine worked.

Rodney typed back, _Be right there_. He flung aside the covers, grabbed the nearest clothes that fit, toed on his shoes. He leaned over and tucked the covers around John, pressed a kiss to his cheek, scribbled a note on a napkin, and was out the door with his wallet and keys.

At the lab, Radek, Miko, and Sam were standing around the workbench staring in awe as the little Millennium Falcon-shaped desk sentinel Miko and Sam had built flew back and forth, the prototype battery-pack connected to its underside pulsing faintly.

“Is that -?” Rodney reached out, felt the heat of the battery.

Radek, Miko, and Sam all nodded, gazes never leaving the desk sentinel.

“The numbers came back right,” Radek said, “so we decided to try it out.”

Rodney nodded. He wouldn’t have been able to resist. “What are you all doing here? It’s the middle of the night.”

They exchanged glances, and something in their expressions made worry curl in the pit of Rodney’s stomach.

Sam said, “You’ve been really involved with John lately, which we totally understand, so we’ve been, you know, doing the late-night thing. Turkish coffee, chess, and experiments.” She smiled tightly.

“You think I’ve been neglecting the research?” he asked.

Miko shook her head, eyes wide and earnest. “No, never!”

“We understand,” Radek said. “John is very important to you, and this production is very important to John, and we will all be there on opening night. We could not have made it this far in the research without you. You have done more than your fair share of the research. We just happened to be home when the baby took her first steps, if you know what I mean.”

Rodney eyed them, searching for any sign of insincerity, and he said, “Well, I’m here now. Let’s do this.”

This was the thrill of discovery, the rush of adrenaline that Rodney remembered from childhood, was the reason he’d pursued science in the first place. Time ceased to matter. He rolled up his sleeves and waded into the fray alongside Miko, Radek, and Sam. They were a team, a unit, moved in their own perfect dance around the lab, sharing tools on a look, hands flying over keyboards. They needed no words, just numbers and constants and the secrets of the universe.

If this was real, if this was true, then they had changed the world. Clean, renewable energy. They could make it affordable. They could make it work for, well, everything. They upgraded from the desk sentinel to a dust buster to clean up the shells of the sunflower seeds Radek liked to eat while he worked. Somewhere along the way they got distracted and ended up plugging a bigger battery into a roomba Miko had ‘borrowed’ from housekeeping. They programmed it to clean the floor of the lab in elaborate patterns, and then Miko found another one and they had roomba races. The roombas ran elaborate obstacle courses and overcame them based on the sheer brilliance of their programmers.

Damn Miko and her little violinist hands - she could type a hell of a lot faster than Rodney or Radek, and that was saying a lot.

They had all kinds of teams - men versus women, glasses versus non, tea drinkers versus coffee drinkers - and they even got one of the computers running off of the battery.

Miko and Sam taped a giant sheet of butcher paper to one wall (who the hell knew where they’d gotten it) and started to design new types of batteries, for cars, for power stations, individual generators for houses, for cell phones and tablets.

Rodney and Radek took over one of the whiteboards with a flurry of markers, and it was like war, slashing through each other’s equations, reducing them down, solving them down to their simplest, most elegant forms.

Teyla stopped by a few times to see what they were doing, and she had Chuck, one of the lab techs, bring them fresh coffee, food, and clothes. She must have sent someone around to all of their apartments to find clean clothes, and they took turns using the shower in the executive washroom to clean up and stay fresh.

Rodney and Sam had drunk who knew how much coffee and were staring at the whiteboard, stumped. In the background, Miko was putting Hello Kitty bows on various battery designs. Radek had seemingly every screwdriver in the lab at hand and was doing something with a roomba, the desk sentinel, and one of the prototype batteries that would no doubt upset housekeeping.

“I think,” Rodney said, “we might need to take a break. None of this looks like English anymore.”

“It’s not English,” Sam said. “It’s math.”

Teyla stepped into the lab, her brow furrowed with concern. “Rodney,” she said, “you left your cellphone at home.”

He turned to her. “What? Oh. Did you bring it?”

“John is concerned about you,” she said. “He reports he woke up and you had left a note saying you were at the lab and now he is home and he has not heard from you all day.”

Rodney’s world came grinding to a halt. John. He hadn’t thought about John since -

Teyla caught him by the shoulders. “Rodney. It is all right. John is not angry with you. He has been very busy himself. Perhaps you should go home and rest. All of you. I will call taxis for you.”

Rodney nodded, submitted to Teyla’s fussing, and was in a cab on his way home before he knew what was what. Everything was all right, Teyla assured them. They had made the breakthrough that mattered. Let the junior scientists handle the fine-tuning. They would discuss what this meant with the rest of the board of directors, with their manufacturing teams and publicity teams. For now, rest.

Rodney made it back to his apartment, kicked off his shoes, and sprawled facedown on the bed.

He woke to the sensation of a hand trailing down his back, stirred.

“Hey,” John said gently. “Teyla says you had a huge breakthrough at the lab, worked yourself into the ground.”

Rodney rolled over, blinked up at John, whose dark hair was spiky and damp, whose chest gleamed with water droplets, who was flush and freshly-scrubbed.

“It’s my turn to take care of you,” John said. “Daniel gave all of us a couple of days off, to be well-rested for the show. I can’t skip daily conditioning, of course, but - for the next forty-eight hours, it’s just you and me, all right?”

Rodney smiled. “I like the sound of that.”

John leaned down and kissed Rodney, languid and slow. Rodney wound his arms around John’s shoulders and pulled him down so they were pressed against each other.

Rodney buried his face against John’s throat. “I love you,” he whispered.

John smiled against Rodney’s temple. “And I love you.”

Rodney stroked his hands down John’s back. “Make love to me?”

John nodded, and he eased back a fraction so he could reach between them, divest them both of their clothes.

They were slow and gentle, careful, because this was the first opportunity they’d ever had to take their time, learn each other’s bodies, trace every line, kiss every inch of skin. Rodney discovered the spot behind John’s ear that made him moan and that the delicate skin behind his knee made him laugh breathlessly. John taught Rodney things about himself he’d never known, how kisses down the side of his throat made him go pliant and boneless, and that a slow, steady pace could keep him on the edge forever, and just the right twist of a wrist at the end of a stroke would make him come so hard he saw stars.

Afterward they lay tangled together, Rodney listening to John’s heart and feeling the rise and fall of his chest.

“Have I ever told you?” John whispered, tracing the curves of Rodney’s spine. “You’re beautiful.”

No one had ever said that to Rodney before, and before John, Rodney wouldn’t have believed it if they’d said it anyway. Rodney thanked him with a kiss and a sharing of breath, and they traded kisses till they were both aroused again, and then they brought each other to completion with hands and mouths.

They dozed for an hour or so, and then they stumbled into the shower, washed each other with gentle hands and warm water and soft soap. They dried each other off with thick, fluffy towels, but they didn’t bother with clothes, because it was the two of them alone. They sprawled back on the bed, Rodney with a book, John with his guitar, and reveled in each other’s quiet presence.

When they were hungry, they had to put clothes on to venture into the kitchen and cook - and answer the door when a teenaged boy delivered some groceries - but they remained barefoot, wearing threadbare t-shirts and old, worn, comfortable jeans.

After the delivery boy left, John stripped off his shirt and padded into the den, to the small space in front of the three full-length mirrors he had set up as his dance space, and did his conditioning exercises while Rodney cooked. They ate on the couch, legs tangled together, sharing morsels of food and a glass of wine and talking softly about nothing. They’d both been in their high school chess clubs. John had played competitively and won. Rodney never played competitively, because the faculty advisor wouldn’t let him after Rodney decimated him.

John knew how to skateboard, but he hadn’t done it in a long time, out of fear of injuring himself and never dancing again.

Rodney had been in theater when he was younger, won a drama award. He’d always dreamed of playing Macbeth.

What came after The Swan? Was this what John had always hoped for? What new heights could he reach in his career?

Now that Rodney’s zero-point energy battery was a reality, what was next for him? What else had he dreamed of achieving?

“I honestly never thought much past zero-point energy,” Rodney said. “Everyone always said it was impossible, and scientists more brilliant than I died without their groundbreaking theories ever being proven.”

“Did you always want to be a scientist?” John asked. “I always knew I wanted to be a dancer, but not everyone has that.”

Rodney shrugged. He’d set aside his plate and pulled John’s feet onto his lap, though he was caressing more than rubbing, tracing the line of John’s arch over and over again with his fingertips. “I don’t know that I wanted to be a scientist so much as I always was a scientist. Even while I played piano and acted, something inside of me wanted to unlock the secrets behind the stars.”

“You never wanted anything beyond science?”

“I want a family.” The words tumbled out before Rodney could stop them.

John, who’d just barely set aside his plate, paused. “You have Jeannie, Madison, and Kaleb.”

“A family of my own.”

“You have me.” John shifted so he was sitting beside Rodney, could look him in the eye.

“I know,” Rodney said.

John searched Rodney’s gaze, and he said, “Let’s start with a cat.”

Relief flooded Rodney’s limbs. John understood him. Rodney gathered John in his arms.

“My life is perfect,” he said. “I have everything I could ever want - you, a breakthrough at work. But I want more. Not for me, but for you. Because you deserve everything.”

“There’s always more to be had.” John rested his head on Rodney’s shoulder. “But for now? Let’s enjoy this. Because you’re right - this is perfect.”

Rodney pressed a kiss to John’s hair, and John tilted up to kiss him on the mouth, and they kept on kissing till one of them suggested, breathlessly, that they take it back to the bedroom.

*

For two days, the world was just them, cloistered in their own walls, talking softly, making love and making music, dancing and laughing, holding hands and reading, playing endless games of chess and even more endless games of Prime Not Prime, but then reality reared its ugly head.

John had one final dress rehearsal, which would also serve as a press preview, and Rodney had to get back to the lab for some press work with Teyla.

“I won’t see you till curtain rise opening night,” John said. He and Rodney stood on the sidewalk out front of their condo.

“I won’t forget about you,” Rodney promised.

John smiled and kissed him, then climbed into a cab.

Rodney hailed the next cab, asked it to take a detour to the nearest florist shop before he headed to the lab.

The florist, a perky androgynous youth whose nametag read _Michel_ , raised his eyebrows when Rodney placed his order.

“A dozen roses, half black, half white?”

Rodney nodded. “Yes, to be delivered to John Sheppard tomorrow night, for the opening night of _Swan Lake_. Cost is no object.”

“John Sheppard is a popular man,” Michel murmured.

Rodney narrowed his eyes. “Someone else is buying roses for him?”

Michel nodded to the giant billboard across the street, which featured a larger-than-life John in all his White Swan glory. “Plenty of people.”

“Fair enough.”

“Only one other person thought to order white _and_ black roses.”

Rodney sighed. “Well, since someone’s stolen that idea, what do you suggest?”

Michel pondered for a moment.

“Hurry up, kid, I’ve got a meter running.”

“How about black roses and white lilies?” Michel said. “Lilies and lakes, swans and lakes -”

“Perfect.” Rodney paid and ran back out to the cab.

He pushed the flowers out of his mind once he reached the office. Teyla had assembled the senior research team and the board of directors in the conference room, and Rodney had to slide in beside Sam just before Teyla closed the door. What followed was a long, intense discussion of the nature of the team’s breakthrough in the lab, so Teyla could understand it thoroughly and draft an accurate but readable announcement about it.

Sam and Miko managed to simplify the concept enough for Richard and Xiaoyi and the rest of the board to understand potential applications for the new technology, what they could develop and market now and what would take a few more years’ research. It was like being back in grad school and trying to TA for physics 101, only the students were a lot more aggressive and pushy and a lot less respectful and open to learning and correction.

Several hours and several more cups of coffee later, they’d settled on drafting a press release about the viability of this new type of energy production but hadn’t reached a consensus about what to pursue as far as making Casimir plate batteries available for commercial distribution. All of the toying around in the lab had, so far, taught them that making actual Casimir plate batteries was complicated, and their best bet was to build a standard-sized Casimir plate generator and a smaller USB-type charger. That was how solar power generally worked - generators for houses, chargers for the rest, and that would make the most sense for current consumers. It would take years and refinement to make Casimir plate batteries for internal installment in existing devices.

Miko, who was a chemist as well as a physicist, was starry-eyed at all of the microfabrication possibilities. Teyla and Sam were crowded around Teyla’s laptop, plugging away at a draft of a press release. Richard and Xiaoyi’s eyes were practically filled with dollar signs.

When Rodney checked his phone at lunch, he had a dozen missed texts from Jeannie and another half a dozen missed calls from her, all variations of _we need to talk_.

Talk about what?

Talk about shopping and opening night of _Swan Lake_ , apparently.

Jeannie had already bought her dress to wear to the ballet. Rodney owned a tux, had been badgered into it by Teyla for fundraisers, and Kaleb was going to rent a tux, but Madison needed a dress of her own, so Rodney was going to take Jeannie dress shopping. Given Kaleb’s modest success as an author in addition to his teaching English, Jeannie could afford a new dress for Madison just fine, but Rodney did enjoy spoiling Madison, and Jeannie rarely let him do it. So, the three of them set off to the mall in a cab.

Madison held their hands and walked between them, eyes wide when they went into the dress store. Jeannie explained to the sales clerk that Madison was going to her first but probably not her last evening at the city ballet, and could they get a dress that fit nicely but could be altered at least a few times as Madison grew?

The clerk nodded and took Madison’s hand and showed her to the dresses in her size, which gave Rodney and Jeannie a chance to sit on the bench near the fitting rooms and talk quietly.

“Do you really think it’s a good idea to bring Madison to this production?” Jeannie asked.

“It’s _Swan Lake_ but with men as swans, right? A little more modern? Less romantic?” Rodney shrugged.

Jeannie raised her eyebrows. “You mean you haven’t read the production synopsis?”

“I don’t want any spoilers.”

“Well - also it runs far past Madison’s bedtime,” Jeannie said, though by the furrow of her brow that was the least of her concerns.

“Madison is mostly in it to see Jennifer and John dancing,” Rodney said. “And she’s young - she’ll probably fall asleep anyway. Bring her along, and if she falls asleep, I’ll pay for a cab for one of you to take her home, and if she doesn’t, take her home after John’s big swan performance. He did tell me that the big swan scene is the last one before intermission. That’s a natural breaking point.”

Jeannie considered for a moment, then nodded. “All right.” She eyed Rodney. “So, you and John are living together. You’ve been dating for, what, five months? Don’t you think it’s a bit - fast?”

“No,” Rodney said. “The rest of the world is just too slow.”

“You think he’s the one, Mer?”

“I know he is.”

Jeannie studied him for another long moment, and then she nodded. “All right.”

Before the conversation could turn any more intense or personal, Madison returned with several dresses she wanted to try, and Rodney settled in for a miniature fashion show. The final choice was something pink and white with a full skirt, lace adorning the little bodice, and short sleeves, but it came with a little jacket thingie in case the theater was cold. Madison was pleased - it made her look like a princess.

Rodney paid for the dress and winced internally at how so little fabric could cost so much, but the smile on Madison’s face was worth it. Only now apparently they had to stop by an accessories place to pick up some costume jewelry and hair adornments to match the dress, and also some shoes and tights and no wonder women spent forever getting ready, if they had to coordinate so many things for an outfit. As uncomfortable as suits and ties were, Rodney generally had the assurance that black, white, and grey always went together, and beyond that he had Teyla to help him.

Jeannie invited Rodney over for dinner that evening, knowing that John was probably going to be home late from the final dress rehearsal, but Rodney declined and headed back to the lab instead. He, Miko, Sam, and Radek ordered in citrus-free sushi and squabbled about who would be sitting where in the company box, and they worked till they were exhausted.

Rodney went home to an empty bed and was so tired he fell straight to sleep.

*

The next day, Rodney was kind of a wreck. It was opening night for John - he’d found a note from John on the coffee maker, John had come home late and left early - and Teyla was sending out the press release. She’d given strict instructions to everyone at the company not to speak to any reporters or even curious members of the public, to direct all inquiries to her office. Which meant that Rodney, Radek, Sam, and Miko had to turn off their email alerts on their phones lest the constant pinging drive them insane, and they sequestered themselves in the lab, penitently repairing the roombas they’d borrowed from housekeeping and occasionally sticking Hello Kitty bows (where did Miko get them?) on random pieces of equipment, just to mess with maintenance.

Over lunch, Teyla briefed them about the initial reception of the news - generally positive, some loud detractors (mostly bitter former employees like Kavanagh and bitter academic rivals like Tunney), and a whole lot of misinformation being passed around the Internet, about interstellar travel and next-gen weapons of mass destruction for the military. When the dust settled, they would hold an official press conference. And they had to be on the lookout for corporate espionage.

Rodney nodded, ate his food mechanically. Miko and Sam talked about ways to monitor and thwart corporate espionage, discussed building some tiny errors into their formula that would be monstrously difficult to detect, or some kind of virus into their data so that if it was downloaded off the company servers, it would ruin the computer systems of whoever downloaded it, and also it would delete the data. Miko said she had a cousin who was a world-class hacker, and for a trip to the States and a case of energy drinks, he’d do the job mostly for fun.

“Call him,” Rodney said. “We’ll pay for everything. Get him here ASAP.”

Miko nodded and dug her phone out of her pocket immediately. She rose up from the conference table and stepped out for a modicum of privacy, already speaking Japanese at a mile a minute.

Radek prodded Rodney in the arm. “You are distracted and stressed out. Go home. Relax. We will see you at the theater tonight.”

Sam smiled. “I was going to leave early anyway, so I could spend some extra time scrubbing up.”

“Are you sure?” Rodney asked.

Radek nodded. “Yes. I cannot look at the battery designs anymore without picturing Hello Kitty instead. A change of pace and scenery will do us all good.”

“You’re right.” Rodney stood, stretched. “I’m going home, and I’m going to take a nap, and maybe even a long bath.”

Radek blinked. “I’m sorry, could you repeat that? Did you just say that I’m right?”

Rodney rolled his eyes, and Sam laughed.

She made a shooing gesture. “Go, go!”

Rodney went back to his office to grab his laptop bag, and then he headed down to the street to catch a cab.

Back at the apartment, he was too restless to sleep, so he ran himself a bath, tossed in one of the bath bombs, and turned on some Prokofiev. He did his best thinking in the bathtub. He really ought to get a jacuzzi bath installed somewhere in the office, so when he got stuck he could take a thinking break.

Rodney wasn’t just a physicist, he was also an engineer. What were possibilities of a microfabricated Casimir plate battery?

Rodney didn’t even realize when he fell asleep.

He woke up and the bathwater was cold. He swore and struggled up out of the bath, splashing water. He snagged a towel and dried off, stumbled into the bedroom - and saw that he had two hours till he had to be at the theater. He stopped, took a deep breath, and wandered back into the bathroom to drain the tub, brush his teeth, comb his hair, and shave.

Opening night was a big deal. He wanted to look his best.

Rodney knew his bouquet was going to be delivered to John’s dressing room, but he wanted to bring a single white rose himself, so he stopped at a florist on the way to the theater.

When he arrived, it was crowded. Men and women and a small handful of children were gathered on the sidewalk and up the steps to the massive glass doors, dressed in their finest, talking and laughing. Jeannie, resplendent in a deep violet evening gown, and Kaleb, looking uncomfortable in his tux, were waiting at the bottom of the stairs, Madison tucked in beside them.

Jeannie reached out, smoothed down his lapel. “You clean up nice.”

“I have a good tailor,” Rodney said.

Jeannie patted his cheek. “You’re handsome, Mer. Own it.”

And he couldn’t help but smile a little bit. “You look fabulous.”

Sam, Miko, and Radek emerged from the crowd, Sam in a black dress with a plunging neckline that made heads turn, Radek also in a tux, and Miko in a truly resplendent kimono of blue and green.

Madison’s eyes went wide, and she tugged on Kaleb’s arm. “Look, Daddy, a ninja princess!”

Rodney opened his mouth to correct her, but Jeannie shook her head.

Radek had Sam on one arm and Miko on the other, and Rodney dipped his head in acknowledgment.

“You’re a lucky man, Radek,” he said, “to be escorting such beautiful ladies.”

Radek smiled bashfully. “I am fortunate indeed. But you are the most fortunate, yes? To be escorting Miss Madison.”

Madison executed a deep ballet curtsey, pleased.

“Come on,” Rodney said. “Let me show you the best place to check your coats.” He headed up the stairs, and the others drifted after him.

“Everyone’s going that way.” Madison pointed.

“They are, but John showed me to come this way.”

As promised, the second coat check stand was deserted, so everyone checked in their coats, and Rodney showed them to the least-used bathrooms and water fountain, and then it was time to go into the theater.

Everyone agreed that Rodney and Madison should have the best seats in the box, Madison because this was her first time, and Rodney so he could see John. Rodney had never actually used the box before, so he was unprepared for the uniformed young man who was their porter, to fetch them drinks if they so wished, and to make sure they were comfortable.

Madison peeked over the edge of the box and into the orchestra pit. Rodney kept a hand on her waist to steady her, pointed out each of the different instruments.

Radek, Miko, Sam, Jeannie, and Kaleb were flipping through their programs, murmuring softly to each other.

“But,” Jeannie said, “Rodney doesn’t want any spoilers. So don’t spoil it for him.”

Sam raised her eyebrows. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” Rodney said firmly.

Madison said, “The Prince and the White Swan get married and live happily ever after.”

Kaleb looked alarmed for a second, but then he patted her on the arm and smiled for her.

Everyone settled into their seats when the lights went down. Someone - it sounded like Elizabeth - announced over the PA that the show was starting, reminded people to silence all electronic devices, and no recording or flash photography was permitted. She also cautioned the audience to rise when the Queen entered the theater.

Rodney took a deep breath when the lights completely fell, and music began to swell.

The curtain rose - on a bedroom, with a bed, and a white-clad boy tossing and turning, tucked into the bed with a stuffed swan.

Madison tugged on Rodney’s sleeve. “Can I have a swan like that?”

Jeannie hushed her gently.

Rodney knew this was a modern reinterpretation of the classic tale of _Swan Lake_ , but John's first appearance on the stage above the bed was terrifying. Was he the figure in the boy’s nightmare? Madison squeaked and covered her face with her hands, but then John the swan faded, and the Young Prince woke up.

Rodney recognized the younger corps boys and girls as servants and courtiers getting the Young Prince ready for his day. An older gentleman Rodney didn’t recognize was some kind of butler, lingering on the edges of the scene. Something about his bald head and mustache was like an old-fashioned melodrama villain. Was he the villain in this piece, too?

Vala as queen was aloof and dignified and unlike the flirty, playful Vala Rodney knew. In every lift of her chin, imperious tilt of her head, she was a queen, all in her body and face, no words necessary. She was a damn good actress. Rodney had to wonder, just how far would John and Mitchell take their acting?

Rodney had never really appreciated that a ballet was a play, like an opera, though with dancing instead of singing as the narrative vehicle, and he liked the small touches - the bit with the dog, Jonas as a servant playing with the Young Prince before the Queen interrupted. The Young Prince grew up into Mitchell, although a Mitchell who was timid, diffident. He seemed smaller, somehow than the Mitchell who Rodney knew in real life, despite the flattering cut of his uniform jacket.

More than one person giggled at the nude male sculpture that Rodney was pretty sure was Evan (Kaleb covered Madison’s eyes with one hand even though the audience only ever saw the sculpture’s backside), but the lingering look on Mitchell’s face was genuine. Rodney knew Mitchell was straight, and his ability to convey emotion was -

Rodney wondered if actors had trouble separating characters from performers when they watched movies or plays, because he couldn’t help but name off all of the dancers in his head when he recognized them.

Madison was delighted when she saw Jennifer in her bright pink dress, tugged on Rodney’s sleeve and whispered, _There’s the princess!_

Rodney liked the modern costumes, how it wasn’t all stiff tutus. If he had known ballet was this interesting he would have gone sooner. He knew this music so well, and seeing it come to life was fascinating. He wouldn’t listen to it the same way ever again.

The box was close enough to the stage that he could see the dancers' facial expressions, and they were telling without being overdone. No dialogue was necessary. Dancers did also have to be actors, and good ones at that.

From what Rodney could see of the plot, it was about a Prince who was bored with the life of modern monarchy, whose mother bossed him around, and who was looking to rebel with a bourgeois girlfriend, who he took on a date to the theater, ironically, to see a ballet. There was a little box onstage, and Rodney remembered Elizabeth’s announcement before curtain rise, and he guided Madison to stand for the Queen.

Kaleb murmured about a play within a play, how it was very _Hamlet_ , clearly a parody of traditional ballet but also a version of _Swan Lake_ with butterflies. It was also fascinating commentary on modern royalty and the press, the antics of the not-actually-a-princess in the royal box. Madison was enchanted by the play the Queen was watching, the Butterfly Princess and her fairy friends. She wanted to be a butterfly princess for Halloween.

Sam approved of the Butterfly Princess saving herself from the villain. Rodney was horrified at the end, right at the mini curtain fall, when the Butterfly Princess died. Jeannie covered Madison’s eyes.

“That’s horrible,” Rodney breathed.

Radek shrugged. “Butterflies only live for a few days.”

Jeannie elbowed him sharply.

When the scene opened with the Prince drinking alone in his bedroom, Rodney wondered just how loose an interpretation of the original this was, because Kaleb had grown up with a drunk father, and that was something they’d never wanted Madison to have to experience. But the drinking wasn’t the issue. It was the Prince desperate for affection from the Queen, who was cold and distant, and maybe she was trying, but she never quite reached out to him, her touches always so damnably fleeting.

Jeannie reached out and curled her hand through Rodney’s, squeezed. Kaleb’s father had been drunk. Their mother had been - absent. The Prince’s anguish at his mother’s denial of him was visceral, like a punch to the gut.

Kaleb wisely took Madison out to the lobby to get her wriggles out when the drunk Prince went to a hooker bar to drown his woes, though he had to promise to be back in time to see John the swan.

Given that Rodney had seen ballet dancers at a club and their dirty dancing in action, he shouldn’t have been surprised that the dirty dancing scene at the club was done effectively, but the dancing actually wasn’t all that sexy or even alluring. It was - sharp, and ungainly, and kind of ugly, but Rodney suspected that was on purpose, because the Prince was drunk, and he was upset, and it was an ugly scene all around.

When the Prince discovered that the suspicious Butler person was paying the Girlfriend to, well, be his girlfriend, Rodney’s throat closed. He’d been on the worse end of such an arrangement before, people interested in his money more than him. He’d tried to brush it off.

Rodney had never appreciated that Mitchell was also a solo dancer, but his sad solo in the alley outside the hooker bar was stunning, not just for its grace but for its deliberate missteps, because he was drunk and upset. The vision of the swans in the alley was haunting, and Rodney could see how the theme of the swans was tied to the themes in the music. He was pretty sure the swans in the vision were the four cygnets, though, and he was glad for them.

Kaleb returned with Madison just before John’s first actual appearance as the Swan, gliding across the lake. His presence was subtle, but Rodney would know the curve of his shoulder anywhere. Somehow, some way, someone had tamed John’s hair.

It was called _Swan Lake_ , so of course there had to be a lake. A lake in a city park was definitely a modern setting. Madison didn’t understand why the Prince, stumbling and drunk, was writing a note with a piece of paper he found in a garbage can, didn’t understand when he stuck it to the lamppost with a piece of gum (which elicited an ew! from Miko) and shucked off his jacket and hat, but Rodney understood, and his throat closed. The Prince was going to fling himself into the lake. He was going to kill himself. It was going to be so, so sad.

And then...John.

Rodney had not appreciated the billboards around town for what they were, an actual depiction of John in costume, but John, shirtless and barefoot and pale, leaping across the stage, was beautiful. Madison leaned on the balcony railing, eyes wide with wonder, beaming at the sight of her favorite teacher. There was an electric moment of eye contact between the Swan and the Prince before the Swan was gone, fleeting. He had saved the Prince’s life.

The Swan was broad and powerful and strong, in turns graceful and elegant, then sharp and vicious. Rodney leaned forward, breath held.

In the midst of the feral grace of the swans - how much their arms did look like wings - the Prince looked small and miserable and vulnerable, but hopeful as he watched them fly and swim and dance. The swans themselves were beautiful but at times awkward, with their animal head flicks and the angles of their arms reflecting the oddness of long swan necks, but they were also a horde of shirtless men glistening with perspiration, and Miko was fanning herself with her program.

These swans were much more swan-like than the stiff-skirted ones in traditional productions. They cast hunted looks, warning looks, angry looks at the Prince when he drew too close - they were wild - and yet the Swan dared to come close. Were the swans warning the Prince away or inviting him deeper into the water?

The first really intimate _pas de deux_ between the Swan and Prince started with them, gazes locked, a single point of contact between them, and the tension crackled like lightning.

John’s solo had those high-flying leaps that seemed impossible without a running start, soaring across the stage like the powerful bird he was portraying. This was what he had trained for all his life, this was the pinnacle of human physical achievement, and it was beautiful.

He segued into the _pas de deux_ with Mitchell, with the Prince, at first wary, then playful, then affectionate, as they tested the boundaries between them. The affection the Prince never got from the Queen he got from the Swan, lingering and gentle. It wasn’t the pursuit of romance but a human reaching out to a wild animal, an animal that was beautiful but fierce and strong, but an animal willing to trust, willing to come close, willing to be touched. Shared lifts and leans between two men ought to have been awkward, but that moment when the Prince and Swan locked gazes and then the Swan lifted the Prince into his arms was - protective. Loving. Gentle.

But as always, the Swan was fleeting and then gone.

Rodney recognized the music for the _pas de quatre_ , and he recognized the four little cygnets. Their boyish grace and playfulness was delightfully comedic, had the audience laughing as they pecked and darted at each other. The four men chosen to portray those little swans were perfect.

For John’s second Swan solo, he was faster and stronger, soaring higher and higher. Every sweep of his arms, extension of his legs was so powerful, it took Rodney’s breath away. There was something beautifully feral in seeing every slide of muscle beneath pale skin as he danced, and Rodney thought, _He gives all of that beauty to me_.

Seeing the Prince dance with the Swan and then become one with all the swans filled Rodney with warmth and light. The Prince’s elation was palpable, and Rodney was inexplicably relieved when he danced his joyful solo, kissed the poor confused old lady in the park, and destroyed his suicide note.

The audience burst into applause as the curtain fell on the city park scene, and Elizabeth - actual Elizabeth or a recording? - announced that it was intermission.

The box porter showed them a private staircase down to the lobby, and once again, Rodney led everyone to the less-crowded water fountain and restrooms. While there was shuffling in the ranks at the fountain - _ladies first, hold my purse?_ \- to get drinks, Rodney sank against the wall, closed his eyes, tried to relive John as he glided across the stage.

Jeannie dragged Rodney out of his dreamy daze to tell him that Madison had fallen asleep - she’d seen the parts she wanted to see anyway - and Kaleb was taking her home. Rodney pressed a kiss to Madison’s hair before Kaleb carried her out to the pavement to hail a cab.

It was decided that Miko, who was short, ought to get Madison’s seat so she could have a better view of the stage. Miko, Sam, Radek, and Jeannie were flipping through their program, discussing the second half of the show, and Rodney deliberately stepped away so he wouldn’t overhear something that would ruin the surprise of what was to come.

Then the soft chimes signalling the end of intermission sounded, and the box porter reappeared to show them back to their box.

The curtain rose on a royal ball, complete with adoring royal fans behind a velvet rope, a red carpet, and photographers, and Rodney thought it was a shame that Madison had fallen asleep, because she’d have wanted to see the ball, although most of the princesses wore black, and one of them had an eyepatch, and they looked modern and sleek and not like the type of women Madison still envisioned as princesses.

And then John came slinking along the balcony rail at the back of the stage dressed in black, and Rodney remembered the comment about leather pants, but it had not occurred to him that people could dance ballet in leather pants. The John who hopped down off the rail and crossed the ballroom like he owned it was not the John who had danced the Swan. This John was the John from the club, only he was something more, head held high, with a cocky strut, and he made a beeline for the Queen.

John whipped a riding crop out of his long dark coat, and Rodney nearly swallowed his own tongue, because _damn_.

Someone in the audience actually said, _Ooooh!_

This was the Black Swan analogue, of course, though he was billed as the Stranger, and Rodney would be okay with a stranger like that dropping into his life (and perhaps a stranger like that had). It was a good thing Madison fell asleep before this, because each _pas de deux_ with a princess was increasingly sexual, and Mitchell hadn’t been kidding about that epic smolder. John was practically on fire, with his wicked little smirk and his long legs. He was powerfully masculine, with the daring lifts and dizzying spins, and Rodney knew what it was like, on the receiving end of that smirk.

Then other dancers took the stage, and Rodney had a chance to admire how ballet was versatile, how it mimicked traditional flamenco dancing. Then the flamenco dancers dispersed, and how did Rodney miss John in the corner, pretending to make out with a random ballerina princess? But then he was on his feet and helping her take off her shoes. The way he ran his hands down her legs makes Rodney shiver, because he knew what that touch was like (and everyone in the audience was wondering what it was like too).

The ball had dissolved into drunk revels, most of them instigated by the Stranger as he seduced everyone in the room, man and woman and Queen alike, but it resolved itself into some more formal ballroom dancing, the Stranger dancing with the Girlfriend and the Prince dancing with some other anonymous princess.

The tension between the Stranger and the Prince as they danced with different women was something dark and dangerous, something Rodney couldn’t read - was it challenge? Was it seduction? Was it anger and warning?

Rodney decided he would like it if John came home with those leather pants - they were tailored just for him, right? No one else would need them after the show finished its run.

The Stranger’s _pas de deux_ with the Queen was flirty and sensual, powerful and dramatic, with intimate lifts and leans but also complex spins and turns. Rodney remembered how John had balked at the notion of Vala as the Queen, and given that he pressed his face to her breasts more than once, Rodney could understand why he balked. John was one of those rare gay men who was completely disinterested in breasts. But no one watching would have known John was gay. Everyone watching was imagining what John and Vala would look like, rolling across the giant stage bed from the Prince’s bedroom.

Everyone but Rodney, who was imagining John in their own bed, with those leather pants and that wicked, sexy smirk.

Rodney hadn’t thought the Stranger would have a _pas de deux_ with the Prince as well, but given that this was a reimagining of _Swan Lake_ , the Black Swan had a _pas de deux_ with the Prince, so it stood to reason that the Stranger would as well. John and Mitchell were of a height, could look right into each other’s eyes as the danced, locked in each other’s arms, pushing and pulling. The _pas de deux_ with the Prince was frightening in its sensuality and cruelty. The Stranger was just toying with the Prince, and Rodney’s throat closed, because he knew what it was like, to be toyed with. Then the Stranger painted that black streak down his face in mockery of the Swan, and the utter cruelty on his face drove the breath from Rodney’s lungs.

The scene turned shadowed, and all the other dancers were suddenly sinister, and everyone laughing at the Prince as he stumbled over his feet with the Stranger made Rodney flush with anger. He’d been on the wrong side of that laughter.

But then there was John, leather clad and lounging on the floor while the courtiers danced, insouciant and sensual, all long legs, and then he was on his feet, strutting like a peacock at the head of the other male dancers. The Queen had startlingly lovely hands when she danced at the head of the female dancers. For all her arrogance and coldness to her son, there was a lightness, a girlishness to her flirtation, the way she delighted in the attention from the Stranger.

The Stranger had utterly seduced the Queen - and the entire audience - but the distress on the Prince’s face was worrisome. The moment when he confronted the Stranger for looking like the Swan made Rodney flinch. The look on the Prince’s face when the Stranger pushed him away in angry denial made Rodney’s heart break.

It was a damn good thing Madison had fallen asleep, because then there was chaos, the Prince drawing a gun in a fit of terror, and the poor Girlfriend was dead, shot dead defending the Prince when the villainous Butler drew his gun to defend the Queen. At the end of it all, the Stranger was holding the Queen and pretending to comfort her while he laughed in cruel triumph, and Rodney hated him.

Something in Rodney’s gut twisted when the next scene opened back in the Prince’s bedroom, with the distant Queen checking to see if he was ill, refusing to be affectionate with him. Rodney remembered his own mother, who barely went through the motions of caring whether or not he was sick, and how she said his allergy was all in his head. The nurse-dolls all masked to look like the Queen were frightening, and if Rodney thought medical professionals were quacks, he was going to have nightmares about them all, because the Prince’s terror was palpable as he was drugged and left alone.

There was symmetry here; Kaleb would have remarked on it. The play opened with them waking the Prince up, and now they were putting him to bed.

Or were they putting him to sleep?

The way the swans slid into the bedroom, casting sinister shadows on the wall, made Rodney afraid, because for the Prince they were never quite real, were visions and portents, had plagued him in dreams as a child but saved him from suicide as an adult. What were they now? They were as beautiful and graceful as before, and again the Prince was dreaming, like he dreamed of the Swan as a child.

The Prince’s fear and distress when he woke made Rodney’s heart ache, and the way the Swan appeared out of the bed was downright disturbing, but he was beautiful and alive, and he was affectionate with the Prince.

The other swans turned on the Prince and the Swan, and no, this wasn’t how it was in the original story, what was going on?

The Swan was trying to protect the Prince from the other swans, who were vicious. People forgot how wild they were, how dangerous beneath their beauty.

The Swan’s distress at the Prince’s death made something shatter in Rodney’s chest, because swans mated for life. The way the Swan held the Prince was a call back to their first _pas de deux_ , all of the musical and choreographical themes were coming together in this final scene, because this was the end -

And then the Prince was okay, he was alive, the Swan was trying to carry him to safety, it would be all right. But the other swans attacked, and Rodney had to clap a hand over his mouth to stifle a cry when the other swans pulled the Swan onto the bed and restrained him. He broke free, he defended the Prince, but they pulled him back onto the bed, and he strained against them, trying to to reach his Prince, and then they killed him.

The Prince wept, and he crawled back onto the bed, as small and vulnerable as a child, sobbing as the victorious killer swans danced, and then he...died. Alone and brokenhearted in his madness.

Rodney was crying, he couldn’t help it, and he waited for the curtain to fall, to take the miserable vision away, but then the Queen came in and tried to rouse the Prince, and she was weeping, holding her dead son in her arms like she’d never done for him while he was alive. Jeannie grabbed Rodney’s hand again, she was sobbing, and then above the bed the Swan appeared, holding the Young Prince in his arms, protecting him even in death, and the curtain fell.

Rodney couldn’t breathe, he was crying so hard, but it was dark, no one would see. Jeannie pressed a handkerchief into his hand, and he buried his face in it, breath hitching, trying to get himself under control.

He heard the audience roar, and he lifted his head, saw everyone was on their feet, the Young Prince was taking his bows, and then Jennifer and the Butler, and Vala and the princesses, and then all the other dancers, and then Mitchell, and finally, finally John, whose expression was jubilant as he took his bows.

The audience roared even more loudly when John appeared, and he took several bows, gathered Mitchell and Vala close for more bows. Flowers rained down on the stage, and John directed everyone’s attention to the orchestra pit, and there were whistles and cheers. Jeannie remembered the rose Rodney had bought, flung it onto the stage with the rest.

Rodney, confident that he had put himself back together to pass muster in the dim light of the theater, turned to the others. Miko and Sam were dabbing at their eyes, and Radek was fiddling suspiciously with his glasses, his eyes bright as well.

Jeannie squeezed Rodney’s hand. “Go see John. Tell him congratulations, from all of us. You must be so proud of him.”

Rodney nodded and turned to the box porter, only Evan, still dressed as a swan, was standing there instead.

“Come on.” He beckoned to Rodney, and Rodney followed him, out of the box and to the stage door where people - fans and family and friends and reporters - were crowded in a throng of happy chatter, flowers, and camera flashes.

A couple of large, black-clad men whose t-shirts read _security_ were standing at the stage door, arms crossed and expressions implacable. Rodney hesitated when he saw them, but Evan squirmed through the crowd and went right up to them.

“He’s with me,” Evan said, jerking a thumb at Rodney, and one of the security men nodded, reached back and opened the door - and there were John and Mitchell, still in costume, grinning and breathless.

Mitchell cried, “Mama, you made it!” and swept a middle-aged woman into a joyful hug.

Evan wriggled past the sudden press of Mitchell’s relatives, tugging Rodney with him.

John lit up as soon as he saw Rodney, drew him into a kiss.

“How was it?” John asked.

“It was beautiful and heartbreaking,” Rodney murmured, smiling. “And you - _you_ were amazing.” He leaned in for another kiss, and a lightning storm of flashbulbs went off.

“John Sheppard!” someone yelled. “Can you give us a comment? How do you feel about tonight’s performance?”

“John Sheppard!” someone else yelled. “Who’s your gentleman friend?”

“Maybe we should head into the dressing room,” Rodney said in a low voice.

Mitchell had somehow managed to drag his mother and father back into the dressing room with him, promising assorted siblings and cousins that he’d get changed in a jiffy and join them for dinner.

John ducked his head. “I really would like to answer your questions, but I have some celebrations planned for tonight. If you would direct your inquiries to my agent -”

Someone else called out, “John Sheppard, what do you think of critics comparing you to Elena Flanigan, former _prima ballerina_ with the Mountain West Ballet Company?”

John’s smile vanished, and he narrowed his eyes, searching the crowd. “I’ve never heard critics make that comparison before. Who suggested that I dance like her?”

Rodney thought it was preposterous that John was compared to a female ballerina at all, but the crowd parted, and a handsome man in a dark suit stood at the edge of the crowd, gazing right at John.

“I did,” he said. “You move the way she did, with her grace and her strength.”

John’s eyes went wide. “Dave. What are you doing here?”

“Heard through the grapevine that my big brother got his first real lead. Had to come see for myself.”

Big brother? John had only ever mentioned his mother, how she’d sacrificed immensely so he could dance.

“Mom would be proud,” Dave said. “Obviously you inherited all her dance genes. Left me with two left feet, hm?”

Rodney glanced at John, who was pale even beneath his white swan makeup.

“How did you find out?” John asked.

Dave said, “One of our business partners - Atlantis Enterprises, I think it was - sent out a flyer, encouraging us to sponsor the arts, and indicated they’d sponsored their local ballet company, which was featuring you as the Swan in an upcoming production.”

And Rodney realized - the man was David Sheppard of Sheppard Industries. John was one of those Sheppards?

John swallowed hard. “Thank you for coming, Dave. I appreciate the support. Give my best to Kathleen and the girls.” To the rest of the crowd, he said, “I’m sorry. I have to go. Thank you for coming out and supporting us. We hope we brought magic to your world, for just a little bit.” He grabbed Rodney’s wrist and yanked him into the dressing room, and someone slammed the door behind them.

“John?” Rodney asked, but John was making a beeline for his dressing room, the one he shared with Mitchell as a principal dancer.

Rodney stumbled along behind him helplessly. “John, what’s going on? Are you upset? You want me to, I don’t know, get Ronon to punch that guy in the face?”

John shook his head. He sank down in front of his dressing room mirror, grabbed a sponge and started scrubbing the makeup off. “No. Forget about it.”

“I can’t exactly forget that you never told me about your brother,” Rodney said in a low voice.

Mitchell was already out of his costume and into ordinary jeans and a t-shirt. His parents were helping him carry all of his bouquets out of the dressing room. Mrs. Mitchell patted John on the shoulder and congratulated him before they left.

John flashed her a brief, strained smile, and kept on scrubbing. “The last time I saw my brother was at our mother’s funeral. My father didn’t even come. After the divorce, Patrick Sheppard pretended Mom and I were dead. Mom gave up everything so I could dance - her marriage, her other son, her life.”

“Her life?” Rodney echoed stupidly, and he realized he didn’t want to know, but John continued with ruthless calm.

“She had cancer. We didn’t have insurance. Treatment was expensive, so she turned it down. So I could keep dancing. She died the day after I was accepted into the ballet academy here.” John took a deep breath. “She wanted me to be the best dancer I could become, to dance where she never had the chance. She gave up dancing to give me life, and she gave her life to give me dance, and I promised, I swore I would do her proud.” He paused, looked up at Rodney. “She was dancing the Swan, did you know? The night she met my father.”

Rodney knelt down so he was eye-level with John. “You were amazing tonight. I’m proud of you. You were stunning, otherworldly. Jeannie and Madison and Kaleb, Sam and Miko and Radek, they’re all proud of you. Your mother would be proud of you. But most of all, you should be proud of you.”

“Should I be? Is all this worth my mother’s life?” John gestured at the dressing room, the discarded costumes, the makeup and lights and shoes.

Rodney cupped his hands around John’s face and gazed into his eyes. “ _You_ are worth your mother’s life. She loved you, and she gave her life freely. _I_ would give my life for you -”

John caught his wrist. “No. Don’t you say that. Don’t you leave me -”

“I would never.” Rodney could say that with a surety. He leaned in, pressed a soft kiss to John’s mouth. “Take a deep breath. It’s opening night. You did amazing. You deserve to celebrate. Let’s go home.”

John closed his eyes, drew in a shuddering breath. “Home. With you. Yes.” Then he opened his eyes and gazed at Rodney. “Thank you for coming tonight. It means the world to me. This was the first time I had someone at opening night since - since Mom died.” He smiled. “I don’t have to be here till tomorrow afternoon for conditioning and warm-ups. You should play hooky from work and stay with me.” He pulled away and resumed cleaning off his make-up.

Rodney straightened up, leaned against the dressing table. “Oh yeah? And why should I do that?”

“Because,” John said, “we’re celebrating tonight, and I plan on thoroughly wearing you out. Also, we should go to the shelter and pick out a cat.”

Warmth blossomed in Rodney’s chest. “A shelter cat. You’re on.” He smiled at John and knew, whatever happened next, family drama or feline shenanigans or ballet insanity, they had each other, and everything would be all right.


End file.
